


Name

by yeaka



Category: INSIDE (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-23
Updated: 2018-01-23
Packaged: 2019-03-08 08:40:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13454553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeaka/pseuds/yeaka
Summary: He does what he has to.





	Name

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Just watched [Brycemase’s wildly entertaining Let’s Play of Inside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzDpLPK6jJg&list=PLfcejBUbhSFF376q5ms29If-t8ZU510bW&index=1) and figured I’d give little No Name Brand his alternate end. **Warning: spoilers.**
> 
> Disclaimer: I don’t own Inside or any of its contents, and I’m not making any money off this.

He takes his final breath of the air _outside_ , savouring each little nuance as it fills his lungs. The air is cool, damp and thick, and smells as raw as any farm, as wretched as all the world. But the cornfield still feels like something of a haven, safe away from overbearing scientists and test tubes. He’d stay, if he could. He knows he can’t.

So he wrenches open the trapdoor before his feet, nearly tumbling back in his attempt. It swings aside, thudding heavily against the ground, and for a moment, he tenses up. He waits, but no one hears, no one runs to him. He’s still _free_. Or at least, as free as his ‘life’ allows.

He descends into the black hole beneath him. There’s a ladder there, the rungs rusting and strangely familiar beneath his numbing hands. The pit below is full of darkness, but so is everything, everywhere. It doesn’t scare him anymore. Not the way _the end_ does. He’d rather this than the alternative.

He makes his way, slow and steady, to the bottom, and then he pauses to peer back, hoping for a final glimpse of the nighttime sky. But it’s too far ahead, and all he sees is a dull, hazy grey with no hint of stars. He forces himself back from the ladder—he isn’t done, not yet.

The lever by the round door hums when he holds it. He jerks it forward, and it makes a noise, eerie and haunting, echoing through the hollowed space in a lilting memory. The combination still clings to him. It sings to him in his sleep. When he’s finished the long, complex sequence of trilling notes, the door grinds open. The narrow cavern before him is ominous, but he wills his legs forward just the same.

It’s a long way to go. He walks it without stopping, afraid that his hesitance will be his end—that his resolve will crumble with his will to _live_. He tells himself this is no life. He marches through the silence, bends and crawls where the ceiling makes him, and emerges into the underground: more remnants of a forgotten world. 

The plug is there. The helmet’s in the background. The light of it glows and shimmers like the stars he misses, infinitely more sinister, yet strange welcoming in their promise. He never thought he’d get this close. All the way back he went, scrambling for dear life and the yellow cords of broken cables. They all added up, his scoreboard triumphantly alight. He’s finally made it. He reaches out, fingers brushing over the thick plug that’s jammed into the wall.

He freezes. A chill runs beneath his skin— _this is it._ The end. He’ll never see the stars again, the cornfield, the cute little chirping baby chickens that had no idea of the devastation that they live in. His legs won’t work anymore.

But he won’t be part of _It_.

He won’t have to join the shivering, sweating mass of shattered bones and bulging flesh, won’t have to feel Its thin tendrils always clawing at his mind. He doesn’t want to free It. Doesn’t want to _be a part of It._ But there is no freedom while It still lives, and one little boy can’t do as much as It seems to think.

He tightens his grip around the cable. He takes one last breath, both terrified and somehow at peace: this is his _choice_ , and in that, salvation.

He pulls the plug.


End file.
